title: Diversity of endophytic bacteria in medicinally important Nepenthes species.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nepenthes species are used in traditional medicines to treat various health ailments. However, we do not know which types of endophytic bacteria (EB) are associated with Nepenthes spp.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to isolate and to identify EB associated with Nepenthes spp.
  
  
  METHODS
  Surface-sterilized leaf and stem tissues from nine Nepenthes spp. collected from Peninsular Malaysia were used to isolate EB. Isolates were identified using the polymerase chain reaction-amplified 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) sequence similarity based method.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cultivable, 96 isolates were analyzed; and the 16S rDNA sequences analysis suggest that diverse bacterial species are associated with Nepenthes spp. Majority (55.2%) of the isolates were from Bacillus genus, and Bacillus cereus was the most dominant (14.6%) among isolates.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Nepenthes spp. do harbor a wide array of cultivable endophytic bacteria.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, AIMST University, Bedong-Semeling Road, Semeling, Kedah, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Subhash J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Bhore
authors.forename: Vijayan
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Komathi
authors.forename: Kodi I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Kandasamy
keywords: 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA); Malaysia; Nepenthes; bacteria; diversity; endemic; endophytes